Children of the New World: Stories (3 page)

“You want a beer?” I asked, wiping the sweat from my forehead.

“Okay,” Yang said. I went inside and got two cold ones from the fridge, and we sat together, on the splintering cedar of the back deck, watching the sun fall behind the trees and the first stars blink to life above us.

“Can’t beat a cold beer,” I said, taking a swig.

“Yes,” Yang said. He followed my lead and took a long drink. I could hear the liquid sloshing down into his stomach canister.

“This is what men do for the family,” I said, gesturing with my beer to the leafless yard. Without realizing it, I had slipped into thinking of Yang as my son, imagining that one day he’d be raking leaves for his own wife and children. It occurred to me then that Yang’s time with us was limited. Eventually, he’d be shut down and stored in the basement—an antique that Mika would have no use for when she had children of her own. At that moment I wanted to put my arm around Yang. Instead I said, “I’m glad you came out and worked with me.”

“Me, too,” Yang said and took another sip of his beer, looking exactly like me in the way he brought the bottle to his lips.

*   *   *

THE KID AT
Quick Fix makes me feel much more at ease than Russ. He’s wearing a bright red vest with a clean white shirt under it and a name tag that reads
HI, I’M RONNIE!
The kid’s probably not even twenty-one. He’s friendly, though, and when I tell him about Yang, he says, “Whoa, that’s no good,” which is at least a little sympathetic. He tells me they’re backed up for an hour. So much for quick, I think. I put Yang on the counter and give my name. “We’ll page you once he’s ready,” Ronnie says.

I spend the time wandering the store. They’ve got a demo station of
Championship Boxing,
so I put on the jacket and glasses and take on a guy named Vance, who’s playing in California. I can’t figure out how to dodge or block though, and when I throw out my hand, my guy on the screen just wipes his nose with his glove. Vance beats the shit out of me, so I put the glasses and vest back on the rack and go look at other equipment. I’m playing with one of the new ThoughtPhones when I hear my name paged over the loudspeaker, so I head back to the Repair counter.

“Fried,” the kid tells me. “Honestly, it’s probably good he bit it. He’s a really outdated model.” Ronnie is rocking back and forth on his heels as though impatient to get on to his next job.

“Isn’t there anything you can do?” I ask. “He’s my daughter’s Big Brother.”

“The language system is fully functional. If you want, I can separate the head for you.”

“
Are you kidding?
I’m not giving my daughter her brother’s head to play with.”

“Oh,” the kid says. “Well, um, we could remove the voice box for you. And we can recycle the body and give you twenty dollars off any digital camera.”

“How much is all this going to cost?”

“It’s ninety-five for the checkup, thirty-five for disposal, and voice box removal will be another hundred and fifty. You’re probably looking at about three hundred after labor and taxes.”

I think about taking him back to Russ, but there’s no way. When he’d told me Yang was beyond saving, I gave him a look of distrust that anyone could read loud and clear. “Go ahead and remove the voice box,” I say, “but no recycling. I want to keep the body.”

*   *   *

GEORGE IS OUTSIDE
throwing a football around with his identical twins when I pull in. He raises his hand to his kids to stop them from throwing the ball and comes over to the low hedge that separates our driveways. “Hey, how’d it go with Russ?” he asks as I get out of the car.

“Not good.” I tell him about Yang, getting a second opinion, how I’ve got his voice box in the backseat, his body in a large Quick Fix bag in the trunk. I tell him all this with as little emotion as possible. “What can you expect from electronics?” I say, attempting to appear nonchalant.

“Man, I’m really sorry for you,” George says, his voice quieter than I’ve ever heard it. “Yang was a good kid. I remember the day he came over to help Dana carry in the groceries. The kids still talk about that fortune-telling thing he showed them with the three coins.”

“Yeah,” I say, looking at the bushes. I can feel the tears starting again. “Anyhow, it’s no big deal. Don’t let me keep you from your game. We’ll figure it out.” Which is a complete lie. I have no clue how we’re going to figure anything out. We needed Yang, and there’s no way we can afford another model.

“Hey, listen,” George says. “If you guys need help, let us know. You know, if you need a day sitter or something. I’ll talk to Dana—I’m sure she’d be up for taking Mika.” George reaches out across the hedge, his large hand coming straight at me. For a moment I flash back to
Championship Boxing
and think he’s going to hit me. Instead he pats me on the shoulder. “I’m really sorry, Jim,” he says.

*   *   *

THAT NIGHT, I
lie with Mika in bed and read her
Goodnight Moon.
It’s the first time I’ve read to her in months. The last time was when we visited Kyra’s folks and had to shut Yang down for the weekend. Mika’s asleep by the time I reach the last page. I give her a kiss on her head and turn out the lights. Kyra’s in bed reading.

“I guess I’m going to start digging now,” I say.

“Come here,” she says, putting her book down. I cross the room and lie across our bed, my head on her belly.

“Do you miss him, too?” I ask.

“Mm-hm,” she says. She puts her hand on my head and runs her fingers through my hair. “I think saying goodbye tomorrow is a good idea. Are you sure it’s okay to have him buried out there?”

“Yeah. There’s no organic matter in him. The guys at Quick Fix dumped his stomach canister.” I look up at our ceiling, the way our lamp casts a circle of light and then a dark shadow. “I don’t know how we’re going to make it without him.”

“Shhh.” Kyra strokes my hair. “We’ll figure it out. I spoke with Tina Matthews after you called me today. You remember her daughter, Lauren?”

“The clone?”

“Yes. She’s home this semester; college wasn’t working for her. Tina said Lauren could watch Mika if we need her to.”

I turn my head to look at Kyra. “I thought we didn’t want Mika raised by a clone.”

“We’re doing what we have to do. Besides, Lauren is a nice girl.”

“She’s got that glassy-eyed apathetic look. She’s exactly like her mother,” I say. Kyra doesn’t say anything. She knows I’m being irrational, and so do I. I sigh. “I just really hoped we could keep clones out of our lives.”

“For how long? Your brother and Margaret are planning on cloning this summer. You’re going to be an uncle soon enough.”

“Yeah,” I say quietly.

Ever since I was handed Yang’s voice box, time has slowed down. The light of the setting sun had stretched across the wood floors of our home for what seemed an eternity. Sounds have become crisper as well, as though, until now, I’d been living with earplugs. I think about the way Mika’s eyelids fluttered as she slept, the feel of George’s hand against my arm. I sit up, turn toward Kyra, and kiss her. The softness of her lips makes me remember the first time we kissed. Kyra squeezes my hand. “You better start digging so I can comfort you tonight,” she says. I smile and ease myself off the bed. “Don’t worry,” Kyra says, “it’ll be a good funeral.”

In the hallway, on my way toward the staircase, the cracked door of Yang’s room stops me. Instead of going down, I walk across the carpeting to his door, push it open, and flick on the light switch. There’s his bed, perfectly made with the corners tucked in, a writing desk, a heavy oak dresser, and a closet full of black suits. On the wall is a poster of China that Brothers & Sisters Inc. sent us and a pennant from the Tigers game I took Yang to. There’s little in the minimalism of his décor to remind me of him. There is, however, a baseball glove on the shelf by his bed. This was a present Yang bought for himself with the small allowance we provided him. We were at Toys“R”Us when Yang placed the glove in the shopping cart. We didn’t ask him about it, and he didn’t mention why he was buying it. When he came home, he put it on the shelf near his Tigers pennant, and there it sat untouched.

Along the windowsill, Yang’s collection of dead moths and butterflies look as though they’re ready to take flight. He collected them from beneath our bug zapper during the summer and placed their powdery bodies by the window. I walk over and examine the collection. There’s the great winged luna moth, with its two mock eyes staring at me, the mosaic of a monarch’s wing, and a collection of smaller nondescript brown and silvery gray moths. Kyra once asked him about his insects. Yang’s face illuminated momentarily, the lights beneath his cheeks burning extra brightly, and he’d said, “They’re very beautiful, don’t you think?” Then, as though suddenly embarrassed, he segued to a Fun Fact regarding the brush-footed butterfly of China.

What arrests me, though, are the objects on his writing desk. Small matchboxes are stacked in a pile on the center of the table, the matchsticks spread across the expanse like tiny logs. In a corner is an orange-capped bottle of Elmer’s that I recognize as the one from my toolbox. What was Yang up to? A log cabin? A city of small wooden men and women? Maybe this was Yang’s attempt at art—one that, unlike the calligraphy he was programmed to know, was entirely his own. Tomorrow I’ll bag his suits, donate them to Goodwill, and throw out the Brothers & Sisters poster, but these matchboxes, the butterflies, and the baseball glove, I’ll save. They’re the only traces of the boy Yang might have been.

*   *   *

THE FUNERAL GOES
well. It’s a beautiful October day, the sky thin and blue, and the sun lights up the trees, bringing out the ocher and amber of the season. I imagine what the three of us must look like to the neighbors. A bunch of kooks burying their electronic equipment like pagans. I don’t care. When I think about Yang being ripped apart in a recycling plant, or stuffing him into our plastic garbage can and setting him out with the trash, I know this is the right decision. Standing together as a family, in the corner of our backyard, I say a couple of parting words. I thank Yang for all the joy he brought to our lives. Then Mika and Kyra say goodbye. Mika begins to cry, and Kyra and I bend down and put our arms around her, and we stay there, holding one another in the early morning sunlight.

When it’s all over, we go back inside to have breakfast. We’re eating our cereal when the doorbell rings. I get up and answer it. On our doorstep is a glass vase filled with orchids and white lilies. A small card is attached. I kneel down and open it.
Didn’t want to disturb you guys. Just wanted to give you these. We’re all very sorry for your loss—George, Dana, and the twins.
Amazing, I think. This from a guy who paints his face for Super Bowl games.

“Hey, look what we got,” I say, carrying the flowers into the kitchen. “They’re from George.”

“They’re beautiful,” Kyra says. “Come, Mika, let’s go put those in the living room by your brother’s picture.” Kyra helps Mika out of her chair, and we walk into the other room together.

It was Kyra’s idea to put the voice box behind the photograph. The photo is a picture from our trip to China last summer. In it, Mika and Yang are playing at the gate of a park. Mika stands at the port, holding the two large iron gates together. From the other side, Yang looks through the hole of the gates at the camera. His head is slightly cocked, as though wondering who we all are. He has a placid non-smile/non-frown, the expression we came to identify as Yang at his happiest.

“You can talk to him,” I say to Mika as I place the flowers next to the photograph.

“Goodbye, Yang,” Mika says.

“Goodbye?” the voice box asks. “But, little sister, where are we going?”

Mika smiles at the sound of her Big Brother’s voice, and looks up at me for instruction. It’s an awkward moment. I’m not about to tell Yang that the rest of him is buried in the backyard.

“Nowhere,” I answer. “We’re all here together.”

There’s a pause as though Yang’s thinking about something. Then, quietly, he asks, “Did you know over two million workers died during the building of the Great Wall of China?” Kyra and I exchange a look regarding the odd coincidence of this Fun Fact, but neither of us says anything. Then Yang’s voice starts up again. “The Great Wall is over ten thousand
li
long. A
li
is a standardized Chinese unit of measurement that is equivalent to one thousand six hundred and forty feet.”

“Wow, that’s amazing,” Kyra says, and I stand next to her, looking at the flowers George sent, acknowledging how little I truly know about this world.

THE CARTOGRAPHERS

PUBLICLY, WE SOLD
memories under Quimbly, Barrett & Woods, but when it was just the three of us, working late into the night, we thought of ourselves as mapmakers. There was something nautical about the loft we’d rented: the massive oak beams and triangular plate glass window that stood like a sail at the end of the room. In the day it revealed the tar-papered roofs of neighboring apartment buildings, and at night framed the illuminated Brooklyn Bridge and Manhattan’s skyline. We called it the Crow’s Nest, and we were the captains, lording over the memories of the world as we drew our maps into our programs. Here was the ocean, here the ships, here the hotel, here the path that led to town, here the street vendors, here the memories of children we never had and parents much better than the ones we did. And far out there was the edge of the world.

What happens when you get to the edge?

You fall off, we joked.

Early on, there were many edges. They existed within our restaurants and hotels as well as the borders of our cities. Most of our hotel rooms were well charted—open the drawer and you’d find a Bible, take the paintings down and there’d be more wall—but behind the closed doors of neighboring rooms there was nothing but white light. There are, of course, the Japanese maximalists, like the legendary Taka Shimazaki, who design every carpet fiber of every hotel room to avoid any edges, but what Quimbly, Barrett, and I found was that most people trusted memories like they trusted films. You beam a movie between your eyes and remember the plot in vivid detail; you don’t wonder where a sidekick’s parents live. When you beam a vacation, you remember swimming at the beach and caipirinhas in coconut shells, not the unexplored outskirts of town. Granted, if a tourist tried to remember swimming far enough, say, past the ships, had they gone farther than the edge of town, up a highway, stepped onto the dirt roads at the edge of the map, they’d see that place where the ground ended and the white light began, but people were happy with their memories. What they wanted was a family trip that went well. They wanted the feeling of skydiving to tingle their bones. They didn’t care about the rivets and bolts of the plane they jumped from; they merely wanted to remember that the pilot’s name was Chip, that he patted them on the back, that he’d said
nice jump.